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New Borderplex CEO wants broader regional brand

Vic Kolenc, El Paso Times
Published 12:52 p.m. MT Aug. 30, 2016

Jon Barela, right, served as New Mexico's Gov. Susana Martinez's economic development secretary for six years.(Photo: Robin Zielinski/Sun-News)

Jon Barela wants this region to become known as the best place for employers to locate, not just along the United States-Mexico border, but for all of North and South America.

New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela was in Santa Teresa in May with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez to celebrate the grand opening of MCS Industries... Jerry Pacheco is at the far left.(Photo: RUDY GUITERREZ/EL PASO TIMES FILE PHOTO)

Jon Barela is the new CEO of The Borderplex Alliance.(Photo: RUBEN R. RAMIREZ/EL PASO TIMES)

“I want to position and market the region as the destination of choice for employers in the Americas,” Barela said Monday after being named as new chief executive officer of The Borderplex Alliance, the almost 4-year-old regional economic development organization based in El Paso.

Barela, New Mexico's economic development secretary in Santa Fe for almost six years, is set to become the Borderplex Alliance CEO on Oct. 1, the group's leaders announced Monday. He will remain in his New Mexico job until Sept. 30.

“The fact that he is from Las Cruces adds some additional value” because he knows this area, Dayoub said.

Pablos, 48, who announced his resignation in May, has moved his family to Austin, where he plans to re-establish his law practice and pursue his dream of starting a renewable energy company.

Pablos was the first CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, formed in late 2012 by the merger of El Paso's two private economic development groups. It has a 12-person staff and $2.2 million budget supported by companies and individuals as member-investors.

Pablos was charged with getting El Paso, Juárez and southern New Mexico leaders working together to promote and advocate for the region while also recruiting companies to the area.

“This is a marvelous opportunity for me," Barela said. " I love the border area. This is my home. This is an extension of what I have been doing the last 5½ years.”

Barela also wanted to return to this area to help his mother and father, who has health problems. His parents live in Las Cruces, but Barela and his wife, Gina, will live in El Paso, he said. They have three grown children.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said Barela's new job provides an opportunity for him to build on work he's been doing at the state level.

“Jon has been critical in helping us diversify our economy, and now, in his new position, he will be able to continue building on our record of success along the border,” Martinez said in a statement. “Because of our work, we're less reliant on the federal government, and we've become a leader in international commerce and trade."

El Paso businessman Woody Hunt, Borderplex board chairman, said in a statement that Barela is a leader with economic successes during his years in government leadership jobs. He will build on the alliance's successes in unifying the region, creating jobs, and "elevating the North American Bordeplex to national and international audiences," Hunt said.

Alejandra de la Vega Foster, the group's board vice chair, said in a statement that Barela "knows how to spur economic growth and work with investors, government officials, and potential businesses to create jobs and bring investments."

Barela has a deep understanding of this region, she said.

During his tenure as New Mexico economic development director, New Mexico became the top state in export expansion and export-related job creation, according to federal data, the Borderplex Alliance reported.

The state had more than 105 business expansions and and relocations during Barela's almost six-year tenure as economic development secretary, the alliance reported.

Garrey Carruthers, New Mexico State University president and another vice chairman of the Borderplex board, in a statement credited Barela with helping New Mexico grow its private-sector jobs to their highest level in nearly a decade. Carruthers is a former New Mexico governor.

Barela has frequently accompanied Martinez, who appointed him to his cabinet position, to Santa Teresa to announce companies moving to or expanding in the industrial parks located in the community near El Paso's West Side. Many of those companies moved operations from El Paso to Santa Teresa.

During one of those visits in July 2013, Barela and Martinez told the El Paso Times that the Borderplex Alliance's job is to work on big, regional issues and leave job recruiting to New Mexico state government and local communities.

"New Mexicans will create jobs for New Mexicans," he said during the 2013 visit.

Barela said Monday that job recruitment is one of the Borderplex Alliance’s jobs. The alliance is the regional recruiter, but should turn job leads over to local communities and let them bid for company relocations and expansions, he said.

That’s a “fair and equitable way to give every locality a shot” at new jobs, he said. It’s the model used by the New Mexico Partnership, he said. That organization is contracted by the New Mexico Economic Development Department to help recruit companies to the state.

Besides being the “economic development convener” for the region, The Boderplex Alliance also is the “singular voice for regional policy discussions and advocacy,” including working on border infrastructure needs, and insuring the region’s military installations remain here, he said. Workforce development will also continue to be an important task for the alliance, he said.

Barela takes the helm of the group in the midst of its work to form the Borderplex 2020 regional economic development plan for this region.

Barela graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1978, and then headed to Washington, D.C., where he received a degree in international relations from Georgetown University. He later got a law degree at Georgetown while also working as senior aide for U.S. Rep. Joe Skeen, R-N.M., who died in 2003. He also was New Mexico assistant attorney general and director of its civil division for two years in the early 1990s,

He lost a race in 2010 to represent the Albuquerque area in the U.S. Congress. .

From 1993-2004, he was community and government affairs manager for Intel Corp.'s semiconductor manufacturing plant in Rio Rancho, an Albuquerque suburb.

Years ago, he was a founding investor of Cerelink Inc., a cloud computing services company based in the Albuquerque area. It no longer is in business, and Barela has said that he ended involvement in the company several years before taking Gov. Martinez’s Cabinet job.

A 2014 whistleblower lawsuit claimed Barela helped funnel state tax credits to several Cerelink investors. Barela Monday reiterated his previous statements that the lawsuit made “ridiculous allegations” from disgruntled former employees of the New Mexico Economic Development Department. Some claims in the lawsuit are still pending, he said.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; 546-6421; @vickolenc on Twitter.